


Curiosity Killed the Cat

by BrainlessGenius



Series: Private moments and Intrusive thoughts [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Blood, Blood and Gore, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Is A Good Friend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Intrulogical, Intrusive Thoughts, Logic | Logan Sanders Angst, M/M, Medical Procedures, One Shot, Or more than that, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Panic Attacks, Prompt Fill, Surgery, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrainlessGenius/pseuds/BrainlessGenius
Summary: Reasonably, these thoughts were not him. Technically, these thoughts meant nothing. Personally, he knew he would never, ever dream of conducting such a mortifying task on anyone. Logically, none of these were even palpable, none of these were real. But the fear settling heavily in his chest was very much so.A sort of sequel to "Of Noisy Silence and Silent Noise," and a fill for the prompt "Logan having intrusive thoughts and Remus helping."
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders
Series: Private moments and Intrusive thoughts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016952
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING/S:** Intrusive thoughts, Heavy medical imagery, heavy surgery imagery, graphic medical/surgical descriptions (seriously, heed the warnings), mentions of sharp objects, blood, graphic descriptions, gore, talk of genitals (in passing and as factoids), mature language, panic attacks (please inform me if there’s more I left out cause I want y’all safe)

_3:02 AM_.

What had Virgil called this time of day again? The witching hour? Logan never really did get the appeal of designating different times of day as “witching hours” or “devil’s hours;” but right now, he supposed the expressions made sense.

If it were indeed witches who cursed him so that he’d have yet another sleepless night for the third time in a row, then he would very much like to request that they curse him with eternal sleep instead. Anything would be better than this restless cycle, he thought.

But Logan was instead cursed with the gift of knowledge, which meant he knew exactly why he couldn’t sleep.

_Up for a little experiment?_

He knew what they were, what it entailed, what it was not, and how to ignore it. He’s told himself and Thomas time and time again that these were only intrusive thoughts, and they were not indicative of Thomas’s or Logan’s views, wants, or perceptions. Yet the name spoke for itself -- intrusive.

_You’re a figment of imagination. You have all the freedom to do whatever you wish, don’t you?_

Knowing the definition never meant being blissfully ignorant of it. He still got them, still heard them, still suffered from them when his body was doing nothing in his moments of rest or when the throes of work had left his cerebral lobe. The maddening thoughts often fought with his circadian rhythm over his consciousness. Usually, the gracious gifts of melatonin won them over; but lately they’ve just been a tad too active, excited, stimulated by the never-ending expanses of scientific discovery. 

_Learning through books and articles will never suffice._

The thoughts played with Logan, tapped into his desires for discovery, frustrated that even something as revolutionary and evolved as scientific progress had its bounds. He expertly shook off the thoughts as he exasperatedly tossed away the blanket covering his loose blue shirt and pajama-clad body. He rubbed the heels of his palms at his fatigued eyes, drawing out a long, tired breath as he did. 

There was no point in falling asleep now, was there?

_Perfect. More time to engage in much more stimulating, enlightening activities…_

He shook his head once, laughing at his own ridiculous belief that a physical head shake would rid of something intangible. His glasses were on his face and he was out of the door in a few, quick strides. As he trekked the short distance to the kitchen, he wondered to himself if this behavior was going to become routine. How long was he going to have to pretend every morning that he got the full eight hours of recommended sleep so as not to be labelled as a hypocrite?

There, Logan insipidly tapped his fingers against the counter as he waited for the coffee to boil. He couldn’t care less for the lack of a proper pattern to his fingers’ ministrations; any distraction was welcome at this point.

_Come on, Logan. How else are you to explore the ever mysterious inner workings of the human body?_

There were no images yet filling his head, thankfully, but he knew these voices well enough to know where they were headed, and he was not looking forward to it at all. The transparent kettle continued to brew, and Logan fixed his ears on the hum of the machinery and his eyes on the ripples taking over the liquid.

_You’re in the kitchen, how convenient. You memorize the supplies needed, don’t you?_

He took a deep breath as he rocked back and forth on his heels, hands clenched tightly at the counter’s edge, trying desperately to block off the thoughts before it ventured off to the direction it was headed.

_The table’s set up nicely. You have a whole countertop of tools. There’s tape to keep the subject in place. There’s an assembly of cloth and tissues, and oh, who needs anesthesia anyway?_

No. What was taking the coffee so long to boil? It felt like hours since he first stepped into this kitchen. Was a mug of coffee to keep him working throughout the rest of the day really so much to ask?

_No anesthesia means you get to test another hypothesis. We can finally tap into the action potentials of pain receptors and visualize the cellular pathways of pain-related neurotransmitters in real time._

He released a quick, loud huff of breath, and silently pleaded for the drink to finish brewing so he could just continue this chain of thoughts in the confines of his room. The kettle mocked him with every swish of smoke from the mouth, every low rumble of the inner engine, every bubble out of the near-boiling liquid.

_Do you think coffee boiled at the same vapor pressure as lava? As mice blood? As human blood?_

The high, thin whistle of the kettle finally resounded in his ears, temporarily snapping him out of his daze. Logan’s shaking hands reached for the kettle and poured the steaming drink into his awaiting mug, a few drops spilling in the process. The droplets looked too much like a certain, plasma-rich bodily fluid, and Logan wiped the evidence off the counter before his mind decided to bother him about it.

_All you need now is a test subject. You have a lovely selection of five, perfectly healthy, lab rats right now at your fingertips. You don’t even have to knock--_

“Logan?”

The unexpected voice was a startling intrusion, the surprised gasp he let out was too loud, and the speed at which Logan turned around was all too sudden. The combined interactions of inertia and centrifugal force betrayed Logan as the movement caused the coffee to come sloshing out of the mug and onto the floor and his unexpected company in front of him.

“ _Fuck!_ Well shit, Logan. When I said I was hot I didn’t mean _scalding_ , holy shit. Toss me a towel, would ‘ya?”

_Well, it looks like you’ve found your test subject._

He sucked in a too-quick breath and involuntarily winced as he rapidly turned around to set down the now empty mug and nab the towels from the drawer handles behind him, muttering streams of apologies as he did.

“Remus, I am so, _so_ sorry. I just-- you startled me, that’s all, I-- oh sweet Newton, are you alright? Did you obtain any burns?”

The apparently shirtless (was Logan that out of it that he did not notice?) creative side dabbed at the reddening splotches on his torso with slightly scrunched up features. The redness seemed to fade away quickly, quicker than the normal response of the human body, anyway. Logan chalked that up to them being only figurative beings, and he internally thanked any decomposed scientist out there that the rules of biology and physics didn’t always steer true in the mindscape.

“Welp, I ain’t gonna apologize for leaving my room half-naked ‘cause _freedom, baby_ ; but yea, I guess I shouldn’t have crept like that. My bad. It’s fine, by the way. Roman deals more damage to my flawless skin on the daily, anyway, so don’t sweat it, hoe-gan.”

Logan released a breath he didn’t know he was holding as he re-obtained the towel from Remus to rinse it out on the sink. He tried to ignore the trembling of his fingers as the water flowed down the cloth and his hands.

_Just wait until you have more than just water on your hands_ \-- Not now, please.

“I am glad to hear that, Remus. So what brings you outside your room at such a late-- err, early hour?” He hoped Remus wouldn’t notice the slight waver in his voice. He thought the sounds of the faucet drowned it out sufficiently. 

“Was struck with a new idea for a video a few minutes ago and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why have we never thought to play ‘Never Have I Ever’ on camera before? Drunk Thomas is definitely something to see.”

_Well that’s one method, isn’t it? Intoxication as an anesthetic._

The wince after that one was hard to hide, and Logan could’ve sworn he saw an eyebrow raise from his companion.

“That’s uh… that’s certainly a valid idea, Remus. I’ll make sure to pitch it to Thomas, though I’m not so certain if he’d want to push through with the whole drunk ordeal,” he said, wringing the cloth and setting it up to dry in a rack above the sink.

“Yeah, figured he wouldn’t like it. Concern for younger audiences and all that shit. How ‘bout you? Wouldn’t expect you to be up this late… or early.” Remus had now settled for leaning against the fridge, eyebrows etched into that of slight worry as he waited for Logan’s reply.

Logan turned to face Remus once more, patting his hands dry on the hand towel draped on the fridge handle, trying his best to steady his vocals before moving to answer. “Oh, work, as usual. When is it ever not work?--”

_Can you see the lines, Logan? You’ve read this in medical books so many times before. One precise stroke down the middle line, stopping short of the navel, another one at the top, on his chest, perpendicular to the first one--_

His breath hitched as the imaginary, red lines seemed to come into existence in front of him, painting a too vivid image of operating tables, scalpels, precision, measurements, torsos, lines, and Remu--

“Logan? Are you-- what’s going on, Lo?”

_Cut through the adipose tissue, past the muscular tissue, past the peritoneum, open him up, do as you please. Test your hypotheses, contribute to the scientific body of knowledge, an entire map of first-hand information at your fingertips, and all you need to do is reach to the side and grab the shiny, metal kni--_

**_“Logan!”_ **

He felt a hand graze his shoulder, and he involuntarily jumped away from the touch. When had he started hyperventilating? When had it become so hard to breathe? He could hear a soft muttering of curses, the soft swoosh of fabric, and he could hear more talking. But Logan could not hear a single thing for the images that attacked his mind were far more potent and the voices that boomed in his ears were much more louder.

It did not seem to stop, and suddenly the only thing Logan could feel was fear. He was scared of the prospect of giving in to the mad house that was his mind. He was afraid of his body bending towards curiosity’s whim. He was mortified at the idea of not being able to take his own advice, not being able to handle the sheer volume of the thoughts like he’s taught Thomas countless times before. 

He was terrified of _himself_.

More vivid imagery ransacked his mind as he cursed himself for falling apart like this. Reasonably, these thoughts were not him. Technically, these thoughts meant nothing. Personally, he knew he would never, ever dream of conducting such a mortifying task on _anyone_. Logically, none of these were even palpable, none of these were real.

But the fear settling heavily in his chest was very much so.

“--gan? Lo--, hey, come on, deep breaths wi-- me.”

_Remus_. He couldn’t make out every single word but he was pretty sure the other had just begun counting. Logan fought hard from where he stood to tune into Remus’ voice, trudging through the murky thoughts of medical jargon, surgical apparatuses, and familiar faces until his ears found Remus’s voice at the surface.

“...five, six, seven, eight-- okay, I think I got you now. Heya, Lo-lo. I’mma start again, okay? ‘Kay. Can I touch you? Is that cool?”

Part of him still screamed terror at himself, told his own head that a single touch was too much to risk; but the other, more vulnerable half was reminded of how an infant’s first instinct is the most basic survival tool of their species. Where a foal’s was running, a human’s was crying, reaching out for _help_. 

Who was Logan to betray the truths of Biology? 

A single nod was all he needed to give before Remus was very gently leading him to the counter again. He wasn’t exactly sure how, but they managed to haul Logan up to sit on the counter, his own shaking fingers being taken into another pair of hands once settled. 

There was another set of counting, and Logan found himself naturally breathing alongside the numbers, the deep, full, steady voice of Remus filling the small kitchen space and pushing out all the unpleasantries in Logan’s mind vapor by vapor.

The panic ceased eventually, to the best extent that it could, at least. Soon enough the familiar presence of Remus standing, now fully clothed in a horrendous green tee and distastefully matched octopus-printed PJ’s, made itself known in front of him. Their hands were still intertwined in each other’s and Logan unconsciously squeezed them tighter, thankful for the distracting feel of Remus’s calloused digits against his own.

“Hey, welcome back, nerd. Mind if I hop on up beside ‘ya?”

Logan settled for a small smile and a tiny nod towards his left side. Remus grinned at the permission and was somehow able to hop up without letting go of his hands. If Logan’s head wasn’t filled with figurative cotton he’d ask Remus to redo the action just so he could make sense of it, but as the weeks passed by, Logan learned to accept that perhaps nothing Remus does will ever make sense.

He found that he didn’t mind that fact at all.

“You rather not talk for now, huh?” Remus tilted his head, letting the gray strand fall in front of his face. Logan considered it for a moment and bowed his head, nodding the second his gaze met the ground.

Remus straightened up, unclasping one of his hands to card it through the gray streak of hair. “Valid, though I can’t promise that I won’t miss your talking. I mean, who else was going to tell me that duck penises looked like corkscrews? Only you, the covert mad scientist.” 

Logan laughed breathily at the statement, an action Remus seemed pleased at. The side beside him looked Logan over for a quick moment before clearing his throat, opening his mouth to speak.

“So, uh, I think I already know what that was, considering you’re talking to the actual embodiment of… you know. So you don’t have to like, explain or some shit. But, do you want to talk about it?”

The hand in Remus’s squeezed tighter, and Logan took in a long, shaky breath as the slightest silhouette of the thoughts popped up in the back of his mind, not quite intruding but still looming threateningly over them. He shook his head. Remus nodded in response.

“Got it. By the way, did you know duck vaginas also looked like corkscrews? Like, how the fuck would that work? If you’re curious why I suddenly know things it’s ‘cause I might have stolen one of your textbooks the other day and well, there were some pretty interesting hullabaloo in it.” Remus conjured up a glass of water halfway through his statement, handing it over to Logan, who was surprised but grateful for the gesture, before continuing to talk.

“We still have a few hours before anyone else wakes up, though if I were you I’d just sleep in, you know? Take the day off. The little shits can handle the day just fine without you, Lo. I can even stay with ‘ya if you wanted.” Remus stared at him, hands never letting go of his and thumbs gently rubbing the back of his palm.

The nature of his previous thoughts once again enveloped Logan in dread and instinctively his head started to shake in disagreement.

“Remus, I… that sounds like a suitable suggestion but I think it should-- _would_ be best if you kept away from me for the moment--”

Remus scoffed and swiftly hopped down from the counter, swaying Logan’s arms up and down as if he were a child the second his feet touched the ground. “No, no, none of that ‘should-would’ business. Do you _want_ me to?”

Logan stared at Remus, who held his hands in mid-air almost head-level, waiting for an answer. 

His voice shook almost unnoticeably, but after a close examining of his own thoughts, needs, and wants, Logan gave his answer. “Oh, if uhm, it is not too much trouble for you, then yes. I would appreciate your company, Remus.”

“Trouble? Lazing the day off with weird-ass biology factoids with the resident nerd beats anything else I had planned for the day, Logan.”

“What had you planned for the day?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

The grin on Remus’s face came back along with a subtle smile from Logan, and the latter was helped off the counter in one swift motion before they walked the short distance from the kitchen to Logan’s room hand-in-hand. 

He fell asleep in Remus’s arms within just the first few minutes of them falling on the bed, the first proper wink of sleep Logan has had in days. 

Curiosity’s darker shadow did not dare cloak him in his slumber, nor did any terrors risk plaguing his dreams. They’d come back, he was sure of it. But when they do come knocking back into his streams of conscious thought he won’t be afraid. 

He had Remus, he had his ~~curse~~ gift of knowledge, and he had himself.

He wasn’t afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you're all doing dandy! Every little support and kudos is eternally appreciated.. Check out my Tumblr @nerdy-emo-royal-dad! Keep safe, fams!! <3


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